LightSail Press Kit

We are pleased to provide comprehensive multimedia resources to support your LightSail reporting process. Please find and use the following resources in our digital media kit: current news, archived past news releases, biographies, video, high-resolution photography for print and online purposes, and background information.

In addition to these resources, interviews with Planetary Society spokespeople are available upon request. To schedule an interview, or to be added to our media mailing list, please contact our Communications Manager Danielle Gunn at danielle.gunn@planetary.org or +1-626-793-5100.

All press materials are provided by The Planetary Society, unless otherwise credited.

LightSail 1 updated solar sail selfie

This image was captured by a camera aboard LightSail 1 on June 8, 2015, shortly after solar sail deployment. It was color-corrected by Dan Slater to remove the camera's artificial purplish tint based on ground test images, and is a closer approximation to what the human eye would see.

LightSail 2 Animation

LightSail Then and Now

In 1976, Carl Sagan appeared on The Tonight Show to talk about a crazy new idea: solar sailing. Nearly 40 years later, The Planetary Society is realizing this dream with a new spacecraft called LightSail designed to propel through space on beams of sunlight.

The Planetary Society is preparing for the LightSail 2 mission, with the objective to demonstrate controlled solar sailing. The Day in the Life tests will occur in a cleanroom laboratory environment and an engineering high bay with the objectives to test the spacecraft’s readiness to perform in space.

On February 6, 2018, I found myself shoulder to shoulder with two of my heroes: Bill Nye on the left, Buzz Aldrin on the right. Our eyes were fixed on the first vertical Falcon Heavy rocket. Figuring the world's most powerful rocket might send me flying backwards once the countdown hit zero, I gripped the railing so tightly I started to lose the feeling in my fingertips.